ENCODE Results: Hype vs. Reality

[Recusant]

Dr. Laurence Moran has a very good write-up on his blog Sandwalk describing how the ENCODE project's results were misrepresented in early publications. Some of the back-story: Creationists of various descriptions jumped on the ENCODE results as a repudiation of evolutionary science because they seemed to show that much of what had previously been described as "junk DNA" was in fact functional. If a sizable amount of DNA in a genome were non-functioning, that might be considered evidence that it wasn't designed or created by a god, but had instead accumulated over the course of the evolution of a species. If it doesn't have a particularly detrimental effect, there's no reason for it to be selected against, so it would continue to be replicated (with an occasional error). So the topic of junk DNA has become very important to certain Creationists.

You may want to just skip the rest of this backstory--it involves Moran battling with a Cdesign proponentsist over the issue of proper understanding of current evolutionary science with an emphasis on the question of junk DNA.

Moran got into a discussion with one of the shining lights over at the Uncommon Descent (Intelligent Design) site. He wrote an entry about this person's errors and misrepresentations: "Answering Barry Arrington's challenge: Darwinism predicted junk DNA". In turn, Arrington wrote a sneering post ("Are Some of Our Opponents in the Grip of a 'Domineering Parasitical Ideology'?") on Uncommon Descent, and the back and forth continued in the comments section. I'm pretty sure that discussion is what prompted Moran to write the piece on the way that the ENCODE results have been misrepresented. Even if you have no interest at all in what Creationists/ID supporters have to say, I think the piece by Moran is well worth reading because it's not only informative regarding the science of junk DNA, but also in regard to how science publishing can be driven (sometimes to the detriment of good science) by a thirst for publicity.